University of Denver defenseman Patrick Weircioch, now playing for the Ottawa Senators and Canada’s 2015 Worlds team, celebrates a goal with Joe Colborne, now with the Calgary Flames. Denver media photo

Former University of Denver standout Patrick Wiercioch of the Ottawa Senators has joined Sidney Crosby (Pittsburgh) and Dan Hamhuis (Vancouver) for Team Canada’s World Championship team after their NHL teams were ousted in the first round of the playoffs. The Avalanche has four players on the team in forwards Matt Duchene, Ryan O’Reilly, Nathan MacKinnon and defenseman Tyson Barrie.

Wiercioch, 24, is the only Canadian on the 23-man roster to have played NCAA hockey. He was a healthy scratch when the Avalanche played at Ottawa last fall but finished as the Senators’ No. 2 D-man behind Erik Karlsson. In Monday’s Game 7 loss to Montreal, Wiercioch logged 23:53, including 4:30 on the power play — second highest behind Karlsson (32:11, 8:00).

The 6-foot-5 Wiercioch, from Maple Ridge, B.C., is under contract next season at $2.7 million before becoming a restricted free agent. At this rate, he will likely break the bank in his ensuing UFA years. He has great hands and vision to go along with his excellent skating ability for a big man.

Wiercioch was dominant at DU as a true freshman in 2008-09, producing 12 goals and 35 points in 39 games. He signed with Ottawa after a similarly good sophomore season; the Sens selected him in the second round (42nd overall) in the 2008 draft. Weircioch’s story is interesting because, he originally committed to Wisconsin, but the Badgers were stocked at D and asked him to play another year of junior-A. Denver originally recruited him, and eventually signed him after David Carle was diagnosed with a deadly heart defect at the NHL scouting combine and was forced to retire. Wiercioch recognized DU’s loss and made the call to then-coach George Gwozdecky that eventually brought him to Denver. Wiercioch became an All-American and Carle is now DU’s No. 1 assistant coach under Jim Montgomery.

Colorado center Matt Duchene skates during practice at the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul, Minn., on Wednesday, April 23, 2014. (Karl Gehring, The Denver Post)

My Tuesday skate was switched from South Suburban Ice Arena to sister Family Sports Center and, although I was late, I ran into exhausted University of Denver sophomore goalie Evan Cowley. The Evergreen product had just finished skating with Avalanche forwards Matt Duchene and Nathan MacKinnon and defenseman Tyson Barrie, plus Philadelphia Flyers forward Brayden Schenn. The NHLers are training to compete for Team Canada at the Czech Republic-hosted World Championship beginning May 1, along with Avs forward Ryan O’Reilly.

Good to know MacKinnon, who missed the last five weeks of the NHL season with a fractured foot, is still skating after beginning his on-ice recovery a day before the season finale.

Don’t read too much into Schenn’s participation — the 23-year-old is under contract next season at $2.75 million, before becoming a possible restricted free agent. Schenn does have some history with Avalanche players. He was a Saskatoon Blades teammate with Avalanche D-prospects Stefan Elliott and Duncan Siemens in 2010-11, after being traded from the the Brandon Wheat Kings. Schenn was selected No. 5 overall by Los Angeles in the 2009 NHL draft, two spots behind Duchene, and was part of that big 2012 trade with Philly that sent Mike Richards and Jeff Carter to the Kings.

Canada’s Nathan MacKinnon, flanked by Sean Monahan, left, and Mark Scheifele take part in practice at the IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship in Minsk, Belarus, on Sunday, May 11, 2014. (Jacques Boissinot, The Canadian Press via AP)

Nice addition for Team Canada’s world championship roster today. Avs rookie Nathan MacKinnon was named to the roster. He will join the team Monday in Zurich.

Hopefully, Canada doesn’t play MacKinnon on the fourth line like it did in the world junior championships a couple years ago, and paid for it in the standings.

This will be good experience for MacKinnon. But let’s hope he doesn’t get hurt.

When: Crosby, the NHL’s acknowledged greatest player going, leads Canada into the Olympics in Sochi as the defending gold-medal champions. Round-robin play starts this week.

What’s up: Crosby scored the overtime winner for Canada in 2010 in Vancouver, dubbed “The Golden Goal.” It came against the United States, after the Americans tied it late in regulation.

Background: Crosby hails from Cole Harbour, Nova Scotia, the same hometown as the Avs’ Nathan MacKinnon, who figures to play on a Canadian Olympic team before he’s done. The first pick in the NHL’s 2005 draft, Crosby has been every bit as good as advertised since coming into the league.

Dater’s take: The Canadians take international tournaments so seriously, there is more pressure on Crosby than probably any other hockey player in Sochi.

But he always handles pressure with such ease. Crosby was groomed for the big stage at an early age, and hasn’t disappointed. He has already won a Stanley Cup and a gold medal, and he’s only 26.

Canadians love Crosby not only for his talent, but his humble nature. He goes about his job like a dedicated backshop employee, never asking for the spotlight. But his talent is such that the spotlight is unavoidable. He is arguably the greatest player in the world.

Hard to believe Avalanche rookie sensation Nathan MacKinnon barely played for Team Canada at last year’s World Junior Championship. I had to ask MacKinnon if he made that team today, because hockey.db didn’t have record of it and I don’t remember MacKinnon playing on that squad that featured a handful of teenage NHL players during the league’s lockout.

“I was like the 13th forward, they didn’t like me on the wing and I was playing like two minutes a night,” MacKinnon said Saturday. My next question was, did he lose his confidence? “You really can’t lose your confidence if you’re not playing,” he said.

The Seth Jones-led Americans went 1-1 against Canada, winning the second game 5-1 before beating Sweden in the gold-medal game in Ufa, Russia. MacKinnon went back to Halifax and led the Mooseheads to the Memorial Cup championship and became the No. 1 overall draft pick in June, and began his first NHL training camp a week after turning 18. He belongs in the NHL, but I had to ask him if part of him wished the Avs would release him for two weeks to play for Canada in this year’s WJC that kicked off this week in Sweden.

Avalanche center Matt Duchene, who last week signed a five-year, $30 million extension with Colorado, is among 47 players invited to Team Canada’s Olympic team orientation camp Aug. 25-28 in Calgary. Today’s news about the 22-year-old Duchene was expected, and if he stays healthy he’ll have a good chance to make the team.

If I were Canadian, today would be a sad day, because Team Canada’s World Junior Championship juggernaut that includes Edmonton Oilers young star Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and other NHLers were pounded 5-1 by the Americans in Russia. It’s always gold or bust for the Canadians, and their boys have busted in this year’s semifinals against a USA squad that appears to get better by the game.

Team USA — which includes Colorado-raised defenseman Seth Jones, the youngest player on the team, and goaltending coach David Lassonde, who has the same title at the University of Denver — will play Sweden for the gold medal Saturday morning (5:30 a.m. MT). Canada will play Russia for the bronze (2 a.m. MT Saturday), a game it probably would prefer to skip.

Still, every decent-sized Canadian newspaper will have a WJC story/picture with captain/refer on its cover Friday. It will be, without a doubt, their biggest sports story of the day (unless the NHL lockout ends in the next 10 hours). Canada’s lifeblood is hockey, and being the best of the international sport speaks to its national pride.

Here in America, most sports sections will have little or no mention of Team USA’s remarkable victory and chance for gold. We’re not educated enough about the importance of the world’s second-biggest international ice hockey tournament, and that most of the NHL’s future stars come from the WJC and some will go on to play in the Olympics. Most people don’t realize that America’s 19-under mix of NCAA and major-junior stars just pounded what could have been Canada’s best WJC team in the past 20 years, given that RNH and others are only available to participate because of the NHL lockout. I often hear my Canadian friends say they are never completely playing with their best WJC lineup, because guys like Matt Duchene and Ryan O’Reilly of the Avalanche were locked in with their NHL team when they were 18 and 19. Plenty of merit there, and make no mistake, Duchene and O’Reilly would have felt like rock stars to represent their country in the WJC when they were eligible.

Most people don’t realize Seth Jones — who likely will be the No. 1 overall NHL draft pick in June — is the son of former Nuggets player and assistant coach Popeye Jones, and the Team USA assistant captain grew up playing for the Littleton Hawks (double-A) and Colorado Thunderbirds (triple-A) before moving to Dallas at age 13. Most people don’t know he probably would have played in last year’s WJC as a 16-year-old, if he wasn’t injured before it began.

Most people don’t realize Lassonde, the former associate head coach under Dick Umile at New Hampshire, has molded DU’s Jussi Olkinuora — a former walk-on — into one of college hockey’s best puck-stoppers, and Lassonde could end up being Umile’s hand-picked successor.

Here’s to Team USA and its quest for WJC gold, because … you don’t get enough of this kind of stuff in the States.

One of the best guys in hockey to talk to, former NHL coach Ken Hitchcock, is this week’s guest on my podcast, “Hockey Talk.”
Join me for a 45-minute conversation with the former Stanley Cup winner and two-time Olympic gold medalist. Hitchcock knows the game as well as anyone I’ve ever met, with the possible exception of Scotty Bowman.
Hitch talks about the first couple weeks of the NHL season, how the style of play is changing again in the league, who he’s been most impressed with among the new young players (Gabriel Landeskog gets quite a plug), his thoughts on the new headshot rules, a look back at that great gold medal game last year in Vancouver, his Stanley Cup year in 1999 as coach of Dallas – and even some talk about the Civil War. Hitchcock is such a big Civil War buff, he even dresses up in re-enactments.
Pardon a little bit of fumbling around by yours truly at the beginning of the podcast. I’m still learning how to run this thing, and need to come up with a jazzy intro.
Click on the player below, or it can be downloaded to your device. It also will be available on iTunes shortly.

Terry Frei graduated from Wheat Ridge High School in the Denver area and has degrees in history and journalism from the University of Colorado-Boulder. He worked for the Rocky Mountain News while attending CU and joined the Post staff after graduation. He has also worked at the Oregonian in Portland, Ore., and The Sporting News. His seventh book, March 1939: Before the Madness, was issued in February 2014.

Chambers covers college and professional hockey for The Denver Post. He has written for the Post since 1994, after dumping his first 9-to-5 office job a couple years out of college. He primarily follows the University of Denver hockey team and helps cover the Avalanche.